From Clutter to Clarity: How to Clean Up Your Self-Storage Facility’s Digital Files and Workspaces
In self-storage, tidying your digital workspace is just as crucial as keeping your physical property clean. By organizing files and eliminating clutter, you can concentrate on what truly matters and enhance your business efficiency. These actionable tips will help you streamline your facility’s digital assets and services and reduce stress.
Outside, the lot is litter-free, the lawn is freshly mowed, the sign is sparkling and the lights are shining brightly. Inside, the counter is clean, the floor is swept, and all windows are free of smears and smudges. Your self-storage facility looks fantastic! However, your computer’s desktop wallpaper is hidden behind a ton of files, most of which aren’t readily identifiable. You aren’t even sure how most of them got there!
It’s easy to let the digital aspects of your self-storage housekeeping slip when you have a hundred real-world tasks to complete. Unless your computer starts to act up, there’s generally little pressure to tidy up your files and online workspaces. But if you don’t properly manage your digital assets and services, your desktop display isn’t the only thing that’s going to suffer! The following tips will help you identify what’s important and get organized, so you can save time and avoid unnecessary headaches.
Identify Your Digital Assets
Every day, your self-storage facility is inundated with emails, app alerts, spam bots and other digital “noise.” You might rely on various tools to reduce this clutter, like spam filters and ad blockers, but you still end up with a significant amount of content that needs assessment and sorting, which can be tedious and time-consuming. Many of us end up with a large, disorganized mess of files and links that we intend to “deal with later.”
But this approach can land you in hot water. Important items you need can fall through the cracks. Some files can create security risks. For this reason, it’s crucial to stay organized and keep tabs on the following:
Email: Check your spam folder and make sure it isn’t filtering out legitimate communication from customers. These are important messages! You also don’t want to miss anything from supervisors, the corporate office or ownership, or any of your hired service providers.
Customer records: All tenant payment records, leases and legal notices should be easy to find and update when necessary.
Financial records: Like most consumers, your self-storage business probably pays its bills online. You may also use online platforms to handle things like payroll and marketing. Save and organize all of your invoices, statements and payment confirmations. Create folders for these documents on your computer or in the cloud, so you can easily access them when needed.
Software reports: Your facility-management software may be programmed to generate performance reports on a schedule, or you may pull them manually. Either way, you need a way to store and keep track of them.
Online listings: Know where to find and access all of your facility’s online listings, such as Google Business Profile (GBP). These count as part of your online workspace, and it’s important to check and update them regularly. Add fresh content and photos and respond to customer reviews.
Keep Track of Your Digital Services
The next step in your self-storage housekeeping plan is to identify which digital services you’re using and exactly what they cover. For example, do you outsource your website design or maintenance, search engine optimization (SEO), social media posting, or reputation management? You don’t want to pay multiple companies to do the same job, but it’s easy for some of these offerings to overlap.
Create a master list of each digital service your self-storage operation uses, what it costs, what you get for your money, whether there’s a contract and when it expires, and whether there’s a fee to discontinue. If there’s any overlap between vendors but none you can do without, make sure they know about each other and what each provider handles on your behalf. For example, you don’t want your reputation-management company doing something that accidentally conflicts with the efforts of your SEO specialist.
Also, make sure you own and control all of your digital assets. For example, if you hire a company to build your self-storage website, make sure you get to keep your domain if you stop working together. If you sever ties with your digital-marketing firm, you want to retain access to your GBP as well as your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts. Outsourcing can greatly simplify and enhance your operation. Just make sure that all elements of your business remain secure and under your command.
Best Practices
As you clean up your self-storage digital files and online workspaces, here are a few best practices to follow:
Name your digital files. Search functions are great for accessing specific records when you need them, but only if the file you need has an accurate name. Get in the habit of creating descriptive, consistent file names, and you’ll be able to find exactly what you need, when you need it.
Organize your files and messages. Create folders for all of your PDFs, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, images, videos, etc., and make time to do that digital filing! Create email filters so you can quickly see which messages need immediate attention and which can wait.
Discard old files. Having enough digital storage space used to be a challenge. That’s no longer true unless you’re working with many huge files like videos. This means deleting old records may not seem important. Just remember that some files should be removed from your computer and cloud for security reasons.
Back up your data. Systems like OneDrive, iCloud, Gmail and Google Docs automatically back up your digital information. Make sure there’s also a backup of the items stored on your computer hard drive. There are lots of inexpensive ways to manage this task and even services that’ll do it for you.
If you create good habits, digital housekeeping won’t be too time-consuming. There are many ways you can automate your self-storage operation so emails get funneled into proper folders, reports are saved in the right place and important records are easy to find. The danger of disorganization is you won’t be able find what you need quickly or complete your work efficiently. Once you’ve set up a strong system, the junk should flow into the trash and nothing important will be missed.
David Austin is search engine optimization (SEO) content manager at StoragePug, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based technology company focused on self-storage website development and management. It aims to help facility operators attract new leads, convert them to paying tenants and rent units online. David previously worked as a content writer for the restaurant industry. You can contact him at [email protected] or 865.240.0295.
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